WOOLRICH x West America – Part XVII

Woolrich, whose apparel has been worn by explorers and adventurers since 1830, has teamed up with Jordan Hufnagel and James Crowe of adventure outfitter West America on an epic motorcycle odyssey from Whistler, BC to Patagonia and back. The duo will be wearing Woolrich apparel while documenting their trip and have developed a capsule of apparel inspired by the journey. Below is the a new post in a series of report from the road.

“Leaving Cartagena was a bit hectic, the only map we had of Colombia was an illustrated atlas from 1980 we bought at a street market, if you plan on traveling in South America get maps ahead of time. We finally shook the grip of the city riding a narrow strip of land running along the Caribbean; the road was packed with massive trucks and a fierce cross wind making for many exciting maneuvers.

After navigating Barranquilla, a major shipping port, things finally mellowed out and the truck traffic disappeared. It was smooth sailing into Tayrona National Park which we would call home for the next couple days. A week earlier we had made arrangements to spend some time on a friend of a friend’s farm. We had a loose description of where it was and looked for the pink house after the waterfall on the left. Luckily the pink house stood out and we turned down a small road leading to the farm, a beautiful lush setting in the narrow bit of land that separates the ocean from the dense mountains above.

The owner was not there but he had informed his farm hand Sidel that we would be coming, at this point in the trip our Spanish was very limited but we were able to get settled in just fine. Sidel, like most Colombians that we met, was incredibly warm and friendly, making us feel right at home. We set up the tents next to the chicken coup not thinking about what might happen later, around 1 in the morning the chickens decided it was time to party. The tranquil setting turned into a full ragger and did not settle down until sunrise, Colombian roosters are on a different schedule apparently.

First thing in the morning Sidel was hard at work making new shelters for the cattle drinking stations, in our broken Spanish we informed him that we wanted to spend the day working with him, the language barrier made for a slow start but soon we were all busy cutting and banging nails.

It was a wonderful day, traveling has made us miss our shop and being able to make something with our hands again was awesome, Sidels love for the farm and all its animals was great to see. After a hard day in the sun he took us up to the water falls above the property, emerging from the dense jungle cascading into perfect deep pools perfect for soaking.

The best part of traveling is meeting the people that live on the land, to see how they spend there days and share experiences with them; it’s amazing how much can be communicated with very little language. We went to bed very satisfied and ready to explore the mountains of northeast Colombia, from the farm we would be climbing up above the coast to the small town of Minca.“